Manliness in Video Games

Video games, a form of media far too reliant on stories of over-sized, muscle-bound, hyper-masculine heroes try to rescue (or in the case of fighting games try to beat up) jiggly breasted, barely clothed damsels-in-distress (and/or vixens) while the rest of the world wonders: “why aren’t there more women who play video games (or work in the industry)?” Why indeed? Here you’ll find all our posts on men doing “manly” things in video games.

Recent Articles

Hey readers, I'm in the midst of another pretty busy spell where I just haven't been able to find time to write much. Luckily, I have a guest post from a faithful How Manly reader to fill in for me this week. The piece comes from a young man by the name of Bobby Dennis (who [...]

Last week, gaming website Kotaku published a profile of Mateus Prado Sousa, a Brazilian man they dub "The Anita Sarkeesian Hater That Everyone Hates." Sousa, who I knew nothing about before reading the piece, has apparently been harassing Sarkeesian for over a year now via numerous "burner" Twitter and YouTube accounts. This is in addition to the [...]

"One of the most radical things you can do is to actually believe women when they talk about their experiences." -Anita Sarkeesian A few days ago I was giving a talk on masculinity, media and violence. When I got to the video games portion of my talk, which of course included mentions of "GamerGate," Zoe [...]

*Trigger warning: graphic threats and descriptions of violent acts* A man in New York slashes the throat of a woman who refused to talk to him. A man in Detroit shoots and kills a woman (and injures 5 others who were with her) after she rejects his advances. A man in Pakistan boards a bus [...]

I play video games, I don't develop them. But thanks to Ubisoft and the ongoing Assassin's Creed: Unity controversy, I learned something about the process of developing playable video game characters last week. Wait, I take that back... I didn't exactly learn something new, as much as I had one of my long-held suspicions finally [...]

About How Manly:

If you’ve ever questioned the messages and images thrown at you while consuming various forms of media, you’re in the right place. Here at How Manly, we dissect mass media visions of masculinity, placing them under the microscope in search of deeper understanding and the answers to questions like; Is this what it means to be a man? Really? You sure about that?